


An Old Hope

by Llwyden ferch Gyfrinach (Llwyden)



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Rebel Anakin Skywalker, Role Reversal, Sith Leia Organa, Sith Luke Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23421355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llwyden/pseuds/Llwyden%20ferch%20Gyfrinach
Summary: Leia has been the Emperor's apprentice since her birth, but it's the duty of every Sith to destroy their master. And she wonders what's in that room they're not allowed to go into.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Anakin Skywalker, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 5
Kudos: 83
Collections: Gen Freeform Exchange2020





	An Old Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darlingargents](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/gifts).



> Many, many thanks to my wonderful beta, Gammarad!

There's a wing of the palace they're not allowed to go into. It might seem a small thing; as the Emperor's heirs and apprentices, the entire galaxy is open to them. But Leia's not one to take no for an answer, and Luke is bad at letting anything go. They both know better than to defy their master openly, but the older they get, the more curious and stubborn they get, the more devious they get, the more ways they find to try.

Luke has a way with droids, but Leia is better at clouding minds. They wait for a week when their master is gone, holos from the news showing him on Corellia, before they try. She corners one of the servants in maintenance, convinces them a droid is needed in a certain room - it's a small thing, really - then convinces them to forget about it. Luke collects the droid, rewires it, and sets it on its course with its new surveillance equipment installed.

In the end, it's a disappointment: a set of rooms like any other. Luke sighs and stomps off to go back to lightsaber training. Leia, though, narrows her eyes and wonders what the droid's equipment is missing. If the room were really only what it seems to be, why would it be forbidden? She thinks of calling Luke back, but her competitive nature stops her. Whatever this is, she wants it for herself. Knowledge is power, and power brings victory.

She recalls the droid, meditating until it arrives. By the time it does, she knows what she's going to do. 

She sends it back out through the maintenance tunnels, then follows it in the ductwork. She's nearly getting too big for this, but if she uses the Force to push herself along and keeps still, it's more silent as well as being easier. She knows the routes that lead where she wants to go, even if she's never dared to use them before. At the other end is a laser grid; she doesn't know if the deterrent is to keep people out or something (someone?) else in, but today she's not letting it stop her.

She waits until she hears the droid open the door, then uses the remote to call it over to open the grate. Once it's gone, she closes her eyes, breathes deeply, and pushes one of the lasers aside. Then the next. Then another. There are sixty-four to get through, and if she misses even one, she could end up dead or short a limb. If they short each other out, the malfunction will probably alert security; it will certainly alert the Emperor.

Leia considers the danger a challenge. Moving them all isn't fast, but she's determined. And Luke might best her at bladework, but she has the focus he lacks. Eventually, she has them all. She pushes off the back wall and past the grid before it slams down behind her. She grins in triumph as she climbs silently out of the duct and looks around.

At first, she sees only what the droid showed them its first time here - rooms that look a lot like hers, or like the diplomatic suites. Then she senses what it couldn't see - one of the walls isn't what it appears. She overlooks the difference several times, until the very way her mind slides off it clues her in. A holo. A very good one, backed by a Force suggestion. She steps up and runs her hands over it, eventually finding another door. She holds her breath as she palms the release. It's locked. Damn it, after all her work...!

She could cry. She could yell and scream. She doesn't. She looks around, examines the room, tries to find any way of getting through it. She only stops when she can feel Luke looking for her and knows it must be getting late.

She leaves the way she came; she can do this again if she has to. It's no loss; she's made it inside and found the forbidden room; she knows what the obstacle is. She _will_ beat it.

She channels her frustration and anger into her studies, almost managing to beat Luke in a spar. Their master berates him for his lack of skill, which is as good as praise for her. She studies locks and circuits, learning ways around them and through them. She shorts one out attempting, and all but holds her breath waiting to see if it'll cause their master to take notice. Maintenance fixes the broken lock before he does, but she doesn't make that mistake again. 

It's months before she's ready to try again, and she can only hope the lock behind the holo is one of the three types the others in the palace are. She hasn't found any installation or maintenance records for another type, but it's conceivable, likely even, that this one wouldn't be listed if it were different.

She has to wait another month until the Emperor is traveling again, but she won't risk being found out by trying to get in when he's around. Patience might not be part of the Sith code, but she's learned it anyway. She waits.

When her opportunity comes, she takes it. Co-opting the droid, back through the ducts, bending the lasers, and she's in. This time with a plan for the lock. 

It takes her reader .5 seconds to determine the lock is type two and another three to do its part in the spoofing, then she's reaching in to finish the job with the Force. Less than ten seconds total and the door cracks open. Leia collects her reader and carefully pushes in.

Looking up at her in dread that turns to confusion and hope is a woman, two or three decades older than her, dressed in fine robes but with no jewelry. The room is similar - fine, but with few flourishes.

"Who are you?" the woman asks. "Did Palpatine send you?"

"No," Leia answers, hoping it's the right thing to say. She calculates whether to answer, but if this woman betrays her, she's sunk anyway. "I'm Leia. Who are you?"

"Leia?" The woman walks unsteadily over to her, reaching for her face, hands shaking. Leia steps swiftly back. The woman bites her lip, her eyes taking in every inch of Leia's face. "I'm Padmé. I'm your mother."

Leia doesn't believe her at first. She scrapes her skin and refuses to say anything until she can test it. Padmé doesn't seem to mind, though she looks sad. 

"I wondered what would happen to you," she tells Leia. "Both of you. Luke? Is he with you?"

Leia crosses her arms and stares mutely.

Padmé sighs. "Right. Right. Why don't I tell you about me instead? Palpatine, the 'Emperor', he brought me here before you were born. He wanted leverage against Anakin." She watches Leia, but if she's looking for a reaction, she doesn't get one; Leia is better than that. She continues. "It must not have worked, or he'd have gloated over it. He always gloats. Is Anakin alive? Anakin Skywalker. He's my husband. Or maybe was."

Leia stays mute, and Padmé seems frustrated. "Do you know what it's like to be stuck in a room for fifteen years? Have you been stuck, too? You're here, and you don't even know me. How do I know you're you? You could be another trick." She fidgets with the brocade on her dress. "Maybe you are you. What has he told you about your parents? What has he told you about everything?" She leans forward, eyes bright. "You can't trust him. You can't trust anything he says."

Well, that's a lesson Leia learned long ago. 

When she sneaks the skin sample into a med lab, she's not surprised it is a maternal match to hers. She never knew her mother, but the woman has Leia's eyes. Or, she supposes, she has Padmé's. They're even the same color as hers in old holos. Beyond potential leverage and curiosity satisfied, Leia doesn't know what difference it makes. Of more interest and use is that it means the rest of Padmé's story is probably true. And Anakin Skywalker is a name Leia knows.

It would be difficult not to; even with the official news blackouts, news about Skywalker and his rebellion leaks out. In the palace, Leia hears even more; she and Luke have been groomed for years to fight these rebels, have already been on small missions against them. Soon they'll be sent out in earnest. They've both been looking forward to getting to kill something other than remotes, but it wouldn't do for the Empire's justice to be carried out by children, so they've had to wait until they were plausibly large enough to pass as adults when masked. Now Leia's glad of that; now she has another purpose, too.

It doesn't stop her killing the rebels they run across, of course. That wouldn't do. She needs to bleed off her aggression and nerves anyway, and a dead messenger is safer than a live one. So they slaughter the rebels, she steals their information and plants her own, and she waits.

And waits.

She's almost given up hope - perhaps they never found the flimsi. They might have refused to pass it on. He might think it's nothing, or a trap. But one night she returns to her room, and the comm Luke modified to make it untraceable has a message on it. A place and a time. 

She debates it; it could, after all, be a trap on their part as easily as on hers. In the end, she sends in drones a day early. This is Imperial Center, after all; she doubts the rebels will be able to hang around for long.

When she shows up, then, she's expecting the extra guards and knows about the explosives. What she isn't expecting is for the man himself, Anakin Skywalker, to be the one who shows up. She nearly panics, less for her safety and more at what else she might have missed, if she underestimated his attachment so completely. Or his abilities. Or his _utter recklessness_. The leader of the rebellion against the Empire should _not_ be here, for any number of reasons!

He eyes her warily; she's left off her mask and battle armor for this, opting instead to wear her daily clothing as if this was nothing but a stroll, and it leaves her recognizable. He in turn is dressed as one of the myriad faceless workers in the capital city, with no visible weapon, though she knows he doesn't need one to be dangerous. "You sent that message?"

"Yes." She cocks her head at him. "You know you shouldn't be here. What if this was a trap?"

He laughs, short and rusty. "That's what my advisors told me. But I'm the only one who will _know_ if you're lying. Is it true - is Padmé alive?"

"Yes," she answers again. "You care, don't you?"

His hand - the organic one, she knows - tightens into a fist. "She's my wife. I _love_ her. Of course I care!"

"Not very Jedi-like of you," she notes.

"And you're going to lecture me about that, Sith?" he makes the word a curse.

Leia shrugs. "It doesn't matter to me. I'm just making an observation."

"So why tell me?" he shoots back. "You just felt like taunting me? What do you want?"

"I wanted to meet you," Leia says. "I wasn't expecting you to make it so easy, though." She looks him over again. She doesn't see much of herself in him, but she can definitely see Luke. Neither one of them has any patience, for a start. "I met her. She said you were my father."

She can feel his shock through the Force. "What?" He shakes his head. "No, she didn't...he _lied_!"

It's her turn to look at him incredulously. "Are you surprised?"

He barks in laughter and brings a hand to his head. "I shouldn't be. But for so long... She's alive. You're alive. How - no, that doesn't matter. Why are you here? You're Sith. I don't believe you just wanted to meet me. What do you plan on doing now?"

"Now?" She smiles. "Now you're going to help me take down the Emperor."

He blinks. "You want to help us?"

She sighs. "No. I want _you_ to help _me_. I'll feed you information, and you can start hitting back where it hurts. Eventually, he'll have to go somewhere less secure to oversee the problems, and together we can take him down."

"And what do you get out of it?" he asks. Not so dumb after all, even if he is reckless.

"It's my duty as a Sith to take down my master," she says. There's no point in being less than honest. "If I wait too long, he'll expect it. This way, I stand a better chance. And I promise you, I'll be a much more reasonable Empress than he is an Emperor."

He looks torn. "You say that now, but how can we trust you?"

"You can always go back to what you're doing now," she points out. "Or try to convince me to become a Jedi."

He laughs again. "I'm the wrong person for that. Fine." He nods. "We can work together to take down the Emperor. Two conditions. I want proof Padmé's alive, and you and I get to talk regularly."

Those are both dangerous, but he probably knows that. She narrows her eyes at him. "I'll get you the proof. Why talk?"

He takes a shaky breath and lets it out again. "You may not care, but I want to know my daughter."

The first part is relatively easy. She's done it twice already - so back into the hidden room she goes, this time with a holorecorder.

Padmé is waiting. Leia lifts the camera. "This is for Anakin."

"He is alive?" She sounds tearfully grateful.

"For now," Leia says, uncomfortable with the feeling. "He wants proof you're alive. Talk to him."

The speech Padmé gives is predictable, if a bit disjointed - she loves him, she's so glad he'll know she's alive now, Leia is telling the truth, they'll be together eventually, et cetera, et cetera. Leia does her best to ignore the words and emotion and just treat it like what it is - the proof her soon-to-be-ally demands.

When it's done, she nods, makes sure the recording worked, then heads back out without a word. She doesn't know what she could say.

The recording goes to a prearranged drop point, and Leia goes on with her life. She practices her lightning on the training droids and slaves their master brings in, she spars with Luke, she sits at Imperial banquets being decorative for idiot courtiers and irrelevant senators.

After one of those banquets, her encrypted, untraceable comm rings. She activates her countermeasures and checks in the Force before she answers.

"Yes?"

"Hello." It is, of course, him. "Can you talk?"

"If I couldn't, I wouldn't have answered," she retorts.

He laughs. "Point taken. So how was your evening?"

She gives the comm an incredulous look. "This is what you want to talk about?"

"I want to talk about anything." She can hear the shrug in his voice. "Everything. Tonight was some Imperial something-or-other; that'll do. How was it?"

"I got to dress up like a doll and listen to speeches from doddering idiots," Leia shot back, perversely relieved to have someone to say that to. "They don't even talk about anything useful, just praise the Emperor. I'd rather hear actual status reports. And don't get me started on this year's formal clothes."

"I wouldn't know where to start," he says, clearly biting back laughter. "I remember some of those affairs, though. All pointless gossip, and the robes were _itchy_."

Leia snorted. "You never had to wear a corset, unless those robes hide more than they look like."

"I...can't say I did, no," Anakin agrees. "But the dress boots always pinched my feet. I grew fast enough they seemed to always be a new pair, and I never got a chance to break them in."

"Ugh, the _shoes_ , yes." She kicked hers off as soon as she got back to her rooms. She doesn't grow as fast as he must have to get that height, but each season they're new. Space forbid the Emperor's heir be seen in last season's styles! "When I'm Empress, I'll set a fashion for sensible clothing and shoes."

There's an awkward silence, then a more awkward laugh. "Well, you've got my vote."

She rolls her eyes.

They speak regularly after that; Leia would find excuses to spend time alone, but she doesn't actually need to. She's always been the Emperor's second concern after Luke. Now that they're on missions, that's even more true. Leia gets the information, but Luke has more kills, weaves a shinier path of destruction. 

She gets fed up one day and deliberately misreads a name. They miss the rebels entirely, and Luke nearly kills half their own squad in rage. The Emperor executes the Intelligence operative that called them in. Nobody even looks twice at her.

"Thank you," Anakin says awkwardly over the comm that night. She didn't even mention the mission, but somehow he knows. "I know you're doing this for your own reasons, but the people you saved owe you, even if they don't know it, and I appreciate it."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" she asks. She refuses to admit that it does. That someone appreciating her, even for the wrong reasons, is nice for a change.

"I don't know," he answers with an almost endearing awkwardness. "I mean, I am your father?"

 _No,_ Leia wants to say, _you're a stranger I share genetic material with._ But she can feel a connection between them, reluctant as she still is to admit it, so she keeps silent.

There are only so many covert visits and encrypted comm calls Leia can make before she's found out. She knows that. She's not as surprised as she should be when she and Luke are called into the Emperor's presence and Padmé is there. The woman is frightened, Leia can feel it, but the only thing she lets show is stubborn defiance. She must have really been something once if she still has that much left in her after all these years.

Palpatine smirks at them. "Apprentices. It would seem at least one of you has been disobeying my orders."

Luke looks at Leia in question. She shrugs as her mind goes through her options. One thing she knows - if their master is confronting them with this, he already has his answers. "We got into the room," she says, affirmation to him and a prompt to Luke. 

Their master's yellow eyes focus on her. "And what did you learn?" he hisses, still darkly amused. He doesn't seem at all perturbed, but she knows that might be another mask.

"She said she was our mother," Leia answers dismissively. "I didn't believe her, but a test showed it was true." Stick to the truth; he will know otherwise.

Luke is doing his best not to gape, and Leia sends him an ungentle mental poke. He scowls. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Leia rolls her eyes. "What difference does it make?"

The Emperor's gaze sharpens. "If it makes no difference, perhaps you would like to kill her? Demonstrate your loyalty."

It's Luke's turn to roll his eyes as he ignites his lightsaber and starts to stride forward. Leia catches him by the arm. "Wait."

Now all their eyes are on her, but she keeps her spine straight. She meets the Emperor's eyes and looks away, acknowledging but not challenging. "You kept her alive."

After a moment, Luke understands and steps back. "We'll kill her if you want to, but you don't want her dead, do you?"

Palpatine chuckles. "Very good, apprentice." He's speaking to Luke, and Leia doesn't bother to stifle the anger, but it doesn't even get her another glance. "No, I want her very much alive. But perhaps the time for that is ending. Tell me, did she say who your father was?"

Of course, he would know that, too. "Anakin Skywalker," Leia answers. Then, a moment later, "You want her for bait."

"No, apprentice," he snaps, " _you_ want her for bait. This is your final trial, apprentices. Catch him, and kill him. Then wipe out his followers."

Leia feels hate and anger, doesn't bother to hide them, just smiles. She turns to Luke. "If we use her as bait, he's sure to come, assuming he still cares for her."

Luke frowns. "She's been here all the time, though. Will he really believe if she suddenly shows up?"

"Not here," Leia says, thinking. "Maybe we'd have a reason to move her. Somewhere else. Somewhere he thinks he can get to. Somewhere that looks insecure."

Luke's face lights up. He turns to the Emperor. "We take her somewhere new, let word leak out to the rebels, and he shows up. Then we can kill him."

Leia shakes her head. "If we just let word leak out, anybody could come. We need something only he will respond to." She eyes Padmé thoughtfully; the woman looks back, still fearful, still hiding it. "Are they linked?"

"Yes," the Emperor answers gleefully. "He feels what those he love feels."

"We'll have to torture her," Luke says, a little distastefully.

Leia sighs. Luke's good at killing, but he never likes the messy stuff. "Slowly, and for a while," she says. "So he'll get enough of a feel for where she is."

The waves of smugness from the Emperor are palpable. He sits back, hands folded, apparently content with their loyalty. "You have your plan, apprentices. Do it."

They bow and leave, and go off to find somewhere to plot. Luke pouts at her. "You never told me you went back. Now he thinks we're both in on it."

"Well, you did program the droid," Leia points out. She pulls her brother along. "Come on, I'll tell you everything she told me. Then we can figure out where we're going to do this."

It takes them longer than just that one day. They both know they have to get this right, albeit for their own reasons. They consider and throw out Corellia, Alderaan, and all the other core worlds. They move on to worlds further out, but none of them seem quite right.

"A space station," Leia finally says. "That would be defensible, and even if the worst happens, we can always move it or shut it down, and he still won't get away."

Luke calls up a list of them. It's dauntingly long. "Right." He sighs. "I'll start from the top, you start from the bottom?"

There are a few possibilities, but the problem is they want to be boarded, not taken down from space. Luke's an amazing pilot, but by all accounts so is Anakin, and there's no way of hiding an entire platoon of ships. A Star Destroyer would do it, but that would also give the whole thing away. For this to work, they have to make it seem like Padmé's relatively unguarded, or at least accessible.

"What if the Destroyer was there for some other reason?" Leia asks. "What about a shipyard? We could bring any number of ships and pretend they need repairs."

The idea has merit. They consider it for days, trying to narrow down which one would be best. Then, as Leia is making her way back from yet another unfortunate banquet, wishing she dared risk her comm again, Luke grabs her arm, his golden eyes shining. "I've got it!"

The military men never speak to her, but they do talk to Luke. She buries her resentment for later. It turns out there is another station, one they overlooked because they hadn't known about it. DS-1.

They take a series of shuttles to obscure their destination. The station is huge, and keeping it as secret as it has been must be a monumental undertaking. They stand on the newly finished bridge and look out.

"It's amazing," Luke says, clearly awed. He eyes her. "But I bet it can't fly for poodoo."

Leia rolls her eyes. "I don't think it needs to." She's grinning, though. "But that could work in our favor."

Luke nods. "How many TIEs do you think we could hide here, and still have it look empty?"

"This battlestation," a voice breaks in, "could hold an armada and still look empty, if we could keep the pilots silent."

Leia's spine freezes even as she turns to look at the man. Grand Moff Tarkin. He's one of the few men that doesn't treat her as inferior simply for being female, but regardless, his presence feels...slimy. Dangerous, yes, but most everybody they deal with is. Dark, but so is she, so is Luke. Tarkin is something else.

Now, he smiles to them both in lieu of bowing. "I've been tasked with overseeing your mission, lords. I and this station are at your disposal."

No matter how slimy Tarkin may be, he's efficient. Leia wonders if there's any way he could be kept useful once she takes over. Well, time will tell. For now, he arranges for the TIEs, arranges for the space they'll need. She and Luke go over their own security, their plans. And Leia goes over her own private arrangements. Plans within plans within plans.

When everything is ready, there's another series of shuttles, more drawn-out and convoluted than the last, and then Padmé is escorted to her cell on the detention block. Leia finds Luke watching her over the security cameras. She watches him.

"She looks a bit like you," he says over his shoulder.

"Makes sense," Leia answers. "I can see you in Anakin now I know to look for it."

Luke nods. "Yeah. Weird. So now we just torture her until he shows up?" He makes that face again.

Leia sighs. "I can do it. I know you're squeamish."

"I am not!" he answers hotly. "It's just...I don't know, okay, I just don't like doing it. We can take turns," he offers.

"Turns sounds good," Leia agrees. "Don't worry, you'll do fine, as long as you don't kill her on accident."

"I'm better than _that_ ," he scoffs.

They fall into a routine - which mostly consists of waiting. Whoever's turn it is will spend time with Padmé while the other goes over the scanners and intelligence they've got. Leia personally prefers the torture; she feels a little weird about it, though not to the extent Luke does, but it's in a good cause, and it's better than sitting around where Tarkin can find her. After too many instances of that, she invokes her technical rank and locks him out of the entire level they've commandeered. Luke doesn't say anything about it.

When it's her turn, Luke spends most of the day exploring the station from the outside, in the new fighter they've developed for him. He's happiest when flying, and she refrains from teasing him too much about it. Anyway, it's useful; they're putting together a good idea of the station's capabilities, structure, and armament, which they'll need, if everything is to go to plan. Well, to go to her plan, anyway.

It's almost two weeks before the word they've been waiting for. "My lords!" The captain runs in and salutes them at breakfast. "Apologies, my lords, but there's a squadron of ships approaching from the far side of the planet. They're older ships, and they claim to be refueling, but we don't have them on record."

Luke grins and pushes back from the table. "Get my ship ready, and have a squad of TIEs meet me in the hangar." He turns to Leia. "You ready?"

"As I can be," she answers. "Be careful."

"And you." He hugs her quickly, and he's gone. She heads for the detention level.

On the way, she brushes past a power junction. It shorts out. The nearby ones try to compensate for it, but two of them fail, too. The others overcompensate, and the power overflows, causing a cascade. By the time she reaches the cells, she needs to force the door open, and the soldiers in the hallways are rushing about in the faint emergency lighting, trying to figure out what's going on.

She opens the door to Padmé's cell, and the woman stiffens and glares at her. Leia rolls her eyes and grabs her by one arm. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" Padmé moves unwillingly, not losing her suspicion. Leia supposes she can't blame her. 

"He'll hardly leave without you now he knows you're here." Leia marches her down the corridors toward the hangar. Not the nearest one, but the one on the side the rebels will be coming from.

"Who will?" Padmé asks.

"Never mind, just come on." Leia frowns. She appreciates people being curious, but she can't exactly answer questions in the middle of the station.

They make it to the hangar; it's lower-priority than getting the power back on, so there are only a few guards at the entrance. They bow to her, and she dismisses them to go help with life support.

Then they're inside the hangar, and it is...not empty.

"Luke!" Leia scowls at him. "I thought you were heading out to find the rebels?"

"Never made it," he says, shrugging. "Sent my pilots to go help with securing the other hangars. Figured I could handle this one. Want to tell me what's going on?" He crosses his arms and looks from her to Padmé.

"Luke..." Leia says, warning.

"You're making your move, aren't you?" he says, and the feelings she gets from him are worry and excitement.

"What if I am?"

Luke nods. "Well, I hope you know whose side I'm on. I–"

He's cut off by cannon fire exploding across the hangar, and they all dive for cover behind Luke's ship as a light fighter blazes into the hangar, screeching and sending up sparks as it fights to stop before hitting the wall. It manages, barely. Before it's even quite stopped moving, a figure in dark brown with a blue-bladed lightsaber is leaping from the cockpit.

Leia scowls at him. "Are you insane?" she yells. "You could have shot us or killed yourself!"

"I know what I'm doing," Anakin answers. He strides over to them. "I'm not sure I don't want to shoot you, though."

Then he stops speaking as his eyes light on Padmé. He steps closer, warily, and Leia nudges her in his direction and steps away. "Make it quick." She turns to Luke as the couple greet each other, but he's looking less helpful and more starstruck.

"What's that look for?" she asks him. "Don't get sentimental now."

Luke snorts. "Not likely. But did you see how he _flew_?"

Leia groans. Trust her brother to focus on that. "So he's even more insane than you are."

"Neither of us is as insane as you," Luke shots back in a near-whisper. "Working with him? Are you sure? What's going to happen when our master finds out? He'll have you killed!"

"He can try," Leia says. "Now I'll have an army behind me."

"What if he just kills them all?"

"He hasn't been able to yet," she points out. "This is my chance, Luke. Our chance. Do you want to be answering to _him_ all your life?"

"You know I don't." Luke glances back at the pair of rebels - their parents - behind her. "Are you sure this'll work?"

"It's got a better chance than anything else I could come up with."

Luke shakes his head. "All right, you know I trust you. More than _him_ , anyway."

Leia nods and squeezes his hand briefly, then turns back to Anakin and Padmé. "Come on, we've got to get out of here." She starts heading for his ship.

"I'll take her," Luke says. "Go." He grabs Padmé's hand and heads for his ship.

"Wait, what?" Leia eyes him incredulously.

"You don't think I'm letting you do this on your own, do you?" He hurries Padmé out. "Go on!"

There's something he's not telling her, but it'll wait. Leia turns and runs after Anakin, who's halfway to his ship already, but still watching Padmé go.

"You've been without her this long, you'll last a few more hours," Leia snaps. "Focus!"

Anakin scowls at her but turns to the ship and is already gunning the engines as she finds the unused copilot's seat and belts herself in. "I never even knew she was alive until you told me," he says tersely. "I suspected; I never felt her die, but I'd had no word in so long. Isn't there anyone you care about like that? That other apprentice, maybe?"

Leia makes a noise of disgust. "He's my _brother_. But maybe I do care about him," she admits in a mumble.

"Wait, he's what?" Anakin tries to look back at her, and Leia's convinced they're never making it out of this hangar. "How is that possible?"

"Well," Leia drawls, "when two beings who are genetically compatible–"

"I know that part," Anakin says, and she can hear and feel his frustration. His hands clench on the controls. "Who's his father?"

"You are," Leia says. "Ugh, seriously. We're twins."

"Oh." Anakin relaxes for a second and manages to get them out of the hangar. Luke's ship is already there, waiting for them. "That's good, only now I have two children?"

"You'll survive," Leia assures him dryly. "Well, you'll survive having us, anyway. I make no promises for anything else."

"Good to know." Anakin nods his chin in the direction of Luke's fighter. "Can we trust him?"

Something in that "we" feels nice, even if Leia sternly tells it to go away. "I can trust him. What you do is up to you."

The comm chimes and Anakin answers it. "Skywalker."

"She said you'd probably be on this frequency," Luke's voice comes in. "You ready to blow this place?"

"Follow me," Anakin says, sending him coordinates. "I'll let my people know not to blow you up."

"Sure," Luke says, entirely too cheerfully, as they speed away. "You might want to get them all as far out as possible, too."

"Why?"

"You know," Luke says. "Tarkin might send someone after us."

"Tarkin won't know what's going on," Leia says over Anakin's shoulder. "Luke, what–" Her eyes widen in sudden realization. "Maximum speed, now!" she yells to Anakin. "Get out as fast as you can!"

To his credit, Anakin doesn't argue, just floors it. They're still close enough to see a bright light bloom through the Death Star's trenches before they're fighting the impact waves buffeting them as the whole thing explodes.

"Luke!" she yells, worry and admonishment both, as their ships straighten out and continue on.

"I don't like the way Tarkin looks at you," her brother's voice comes, dark. "He won't anymore. Besides, it makes a statement, doesn't it?"

"I can take care of myself, you know," she says, amused but touched.

"Sure, but what else are twins for?"

"Head for the coordinates I gave you," Anakin interrupts. "We'll see you there."

Luke gives his assent, and then they're entering hyperspace, and it's just Leia, Anakin, and the blue streaks of stars. 

He loosens his straps enough to turn around toward her, looking her over. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. She waits. Finally, he sticks out his hand. "Hi."

Leia smiles wryly and takes it. "Hi. Again."

"Before I say anything else, I want to get it out of the way," Anakin says. "Don't ever hurt Padmé again."

"Don't lose her again," Leia retorts. 

"I don't plan on it." His expression is as unreadable as the emotions coming off of him. Strong, whatever they are. "I...we have a family now."

"We're not family yet," Leia cautions. "And I still want your help."

"We'll help you take down Palpatine," Anakin promises. "But maybe along the way I can convince you not to take his place."

"You can try," Leia says, shrugging. She doesn't expect it will work, but he can always try.

Anakin grins. "I'm very persuasive."

"So you say." She finds herself smiling back a little.

"I'm also told I'm very stubborn," he adds.

"So am I," she answers firmly.

Anakin turns back to the controls, still grinning. "Yeah, but I've got more experience. Get used to it. Kid."

Leia scowls. "Don't call me that, old man."

"Whatever you say."


End file.
